I'm aware the third person plugin is open source, but now that GM-Support seems to have both stopped supporting/updating the product, and stopped selling it, I find it reasonable that he makes Adventure Maker itself open source, too. As well as the Cylindrical and Cubic panorama plugins, would be nice...

So what do you think, a good idea or not?

Sure, there are people like me who paid for the full edition, and if it were made free and open source, that might seem unfair to some... But I'm perfectly ok with it. Better the project has a chance to live on in new hands, rather than dying quickly like it is now. AM or no AM? That is the question here...

Would you rather it die? Because if it were made free and open source and uploaded to some place like github, that seems to be about the only thing that could possibly prevent this software and its plugins from dying at this point. *cough* if shadowhunter could release his plugins source as well that would be great since his site is down, he could just host them for free via github too...

Your thoughts?

Last edited by time-killer-games on Sun Nov 26, 2017 8:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It's a great idea! In a way, it's logical thinking. Maybe even to transfer the entire software into another language, better for newer platforms ... The program itself has the potential to be much bigger than it is, but it all depends on the will of certain people. I really would like to see AM in some, more modern, newer edition

It would be a good idea, but it has to be GM decision taken without pressure. If he still earns money from selling the program, I don't see why he would want to change. He put a lot of efforts in it and owns the rights, it's up to him! I would understand both decisions (accept or refuse open source).

Personally I would really like to see AM become open source and bring an evolution in the engine. There used to be a rich community here, but now the forums are almost dead. Happily I have the feeling that there are still many fans of the engine ready to come back in case of a major evolution, but it would have to be convincing! many gave up or migrated to another engine. The main reason for coming back to AM would be the ease of use, and for this very reason, any future improvement of the program would have to target beginner developers.

I am afraid that it is a bit too late now to take this decision to go open source. Indeed, there are now many reliable free engines, a lot of competition between all engines, there are some much more popular engines (Unity, Unreal), there has not been any big game of interest released with AM in years, the old-school 2d Myst-like games have lost many fans who turned to more modern games (full3d, hd, etc), and finally there would not be any official support (in case of issue with the program).

There would be a LOT of work to make AM attractive again in the current situation, even if it was free!However it's not impossible if GM agrees, it only requires a lot of motivation from you guys I personally would be of no help, according that I don't know anything in programming.

Sorry Candle, I didn't think of it that way... That does really stink.

But, if he migrated everything to GitHub (AM and all its plugins), he could finally shut down the official website and forum to save him money, and GitHub hosting is 100% free for open source hosting. People who are still interested in developing the software could make fan sites and forums of their own.

Of course, all of this is just speculation... As Simon said, all this is GM's decision to make. If anyone wants to remove or lock this topic, they can, (or I can too, I just wanted to know what the other mods/admins thoughts were on this). The last thing I want is for GM-Support to feel pressured.

I don't see anything offensive about suggesting open source, especially with the store being down. I'm positive GM knows the store is down, as I have mentioned it to him on multiple occasions via emails that he responded too. I know if it were my product, I'd be honored if people asked for open-source after the life of the product had been spent (which it has).

The more I think of it, the more I find that Open Source would be the best solution.

If I am not mistaken, it could allow the engine to take 2 separate paths:- the official/commercial version named Adventure Maker (GM would remain the sole proprietor and do whatever he wants with his program)- the community build, released in another name, and modified by you guys

Of course GM would keep the ownership and would be allowed to stop everything if he didn't like what you're doing.In my opinion there's a kind of exchange to think here, which can benefit to both parts (you and GM), with a kind of agreement.

I think that it's more or less what they've done with CryEngine: the official developers continue to use it to make games (Crysis etc), and they have "given" part of their program Open Source, which has been used by Amazon to create their own engine Lumberyard. Both of them are taking 2 different ways now, and it's fine!

@reneuend good to know. Just wanted to make sure what I was doing was OK.

@Simon yeah, Blitz Research did something similar, the same guy is the main developer of his game engines (BlitzPlus, Blitz3D, BlitzMax, Monkey-X, and Monkey2), except after many years of selling them, he finally decided to make them open source. A lot of products are doing this nowadays.

I wonder how easy it would be to convert AM and its plugins to newer versions of Visual Basic. I read on Stack Overflow the other day that apparently the last version of Visual Basic that could still import VB6 project files was the one that came with Visual Studio 2008, which is no longer available from Microsoft, but can still be downloaded elsewhere. Once converted with VS2008, I'd imagine getting it to work out-of-the-box in the latest version of VB/VS would be quite the breeze. Although I don't know how well VS2008's VB6 project importer converts those projects, might take a lot of extra work to the point of not being worth it in the long run (unless GM had to in order to keep things compatible with versions of Windows that haven't come out yet).

I'd definitely like to see this happen if AM isn't ever going to be available for sale again. I never bought the program, so now I can't export any of my games as executables. And while I probably wouldn't ever make any commercial projects with AM, it's so easy to use and make fun, simple games with I'd still have a blast making and sharing some simple games. Getting updates to the software would be the icing on the cake! Basically though, I just want some way, any way to get the full version.

I would love to be able to give you a copy of my game, but I can't without permission from GM, the developer and owner of Adventure Maker. Although his site is down and not taking orders, he still owns the software. Have tried to email him using his Yahoo email?He is very hard to get a response from, but don't give up too easily.

I would suggest we get started on it. Please let me know if there is anything I can do. I might be able to get all of the data from this forum using a script. It would be worth a try because I think this will eventually be gone....sooner than later.

We would need the core files and database from the forum. If we get FTP access we can get the files, but we also need the database. After transfer to the new server, we'll need to point the domain to the new name servers. Or, we can go with a new domain...